nano-engineered gel structures and surfaces on the
electrodes. The gel also acts
as fre retardant. His spin-out company Gelion Technologies is currently working with
Lend Lease on solutions for
how this battery technology
could be built into the walls
and roofs of new buildings.

“You won’t need a batteryin the garage. Instead it willbe in the walls and roof —“Zinc and bromine are abundant and inexpensive commod-ities. Our battery designs are a platform technology that willenable commercially viable, grid-supporting storage solutions;as well as inexpensive, fexible, fast and safe new batteries, suf-fciently compact to be also usable in domestic solar systems andelectric vehicles.”Maschmeyer’s Sydney colleagues are also looking at new lith-ium-based technologies — trying to improve the density andmobility of the lithium ions, which would increase capacity andmake charging faster.

Nano-engineered materials are also key to the solar cell side —
the Institute is working on solar cells based on perovskite minerals. Although they have reached 20 percent effciency, the cells are
still unstable. Maschmeyer said they can solve that problem.

Not only are nano-engineering concepts changing battery
design, they are also transforming industrial catalysts.